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Importance of Spanish 

to the 

American Citizen 



By 

JOHN D. FITZ-GERALD, Ph.D. 

University of Illinois 



BENJ. H. SANBORN & CO. 
CHICAGO NEW YORK BOSTON 



m 18 1918 

©Ci.A496116 



^ 

\.^^ 



^^x^ 



IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

TO THE 

AMERICAN CITIZEN 

By 

JOHN D. FITZ-GERALD, Ph.D. 

University of Illinois 

Copyright, 1918, by Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. 

American Interest in Things Spanish 

The United States has always been able to boast that some 
of its prominent men were actively interested in Spain. This has 
effectively prevented the public in general from losing entirely its 
interest in the Iberian Peninsula. We can point in our early days 
to Washington Irving, who, while United States Minister at Mad- 
rid, took occasion to steep himself in the romantic legends of early 
Spain and gave us his beautiful Tales of the Alhambra. These 
legends, curiously enough, had never before gotten into print in 
any language. The Spaniards themselves appreciate Irving's in- 
terest and were the first to recognize the service he had done them 
in thus calling attention thereto. 

Later William Hickling Prescott, with his Life of Philip II, 
George Ticknor, with his History of Spanish Literature, Long- 
fellow, with his Spanish Student, and John Hay, with his Castilian 
Days, have constantly fanned the flame of our affection. Still 
more recently historians have been giving us new cause for inter- 

3 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

est in, and gratitude toward, the Land of the Dons. We have 
long known what we owed to France for aid during our Revolu- 
tion. We have not known much about our debt to Spain at that 
time, and yet that debt was considerable. Among other things 
Spain lent us over a million dollars ; she granted our privateers- 
men refuge in all her harbors ; she permitted the purchase of sup- 
plies by the exchange of commodities ; and at New Orleans, Pen- 
sacola, and Havana she showed us unusual privileges, permitting 
us to maintain at New Orleans a Special Commissioner, Mr. Pol- 
lock, who purchased ammunition and provisions which were sent 
up the Mississippi and the Ohio, and so eastward to our troops. 
During the whole of the war Spain maintained an agent at Phila- 
delphia for the purpose of watching events. Last, but not least, 
the Count of Aranda, Spanish Ambassador at Paris, as early as 
March, 1775, suggested to the French government joint interven- 
tion by France and Spain in the approaching trouble between Eng- 
land and the Colonies. 

In spite of all this, when mention is made of Spain, it has been 
the habit for many years past, both in this country and in Europe, 
to shrug the shoulders and, with Nicholas Masson de Morvilliers, 
to ask : "But, what do we owe to Spain ? And during the last two 
centuries, the last four, the last six, what has she done for Eu- 
rope?" The implication is only too plain. It is, however, entirely 
erroneous. It has been the custom tQ consider Spain as a country 
of barbarians, and this has led to the statement, often heard, that 
''Africa really begins at the Pyrenees". In this statement there 
is just enough truth to make the half lie more dangerous than an 
out-and-out misstatement would have been. Persons with that 
idea in mind show their own ignorance of the history of Spain 
from its earliest times to the present day, or else they forget some 
very obvious facts. 

4 



TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

Silver Latin in Spain 

Consider what Silver Latin would amount to without the 
Rhetorician Seneca the Elder (born at Cordoba, B. C. 60), with- 
out his son, the Philosopher and Dramaturge Seneca the Younger 
(born at Cordoba, B. C. 3), without the Poet Lucan, grandson and 
nephew, respectively, of the two Senecas (born at Cordoba, A. D. 
39), and without the Epigrams of Martial (born near Calatayud, 
A. D. 43), and the Institutes of Oratory and the Maxims of 
Quintilian (born at Calahorra, A. D. 35). There were also Pom- 
ponius Mela (who w(as born at Tingentera, Spain, and flourished 
under Caligula and Claudius) and Columella (a contemporary 
of Seneca, and born at Cadiz) . And still later we find Prudentius, 
the earliest of the Christian poets (said to have been born at 
Tarragona, A. D. 348) ; Isidor of Seville (died 636), who, 
next to Boethius and Cassiodorus, exercised the most important 
influence upon the general culture and literature of the Middle 
Ages, and whose greatest work was his Etymologiae or Origines; 
and Teodolfo, Spanish Bishop of Orleans, famous in the Court of 
Charlemagne as a poet and litterateur, and whose name will be held 
in remembrance until his triumphant hymn Gloria, laus et honor 
ceases to be sung throughout the whole world on Palm Sunday, 

Lexicography and Grammar 
We have spoken of Spanish literature, so far as it concerned 
Silver Latin, but that was not its only period of importance. As 
early as 1427 Spain possessed complete translations of Virgil and 
Dante, both due to the pen of Don Enrique de Villena. Alonso 
de Palencia produced in 1490 the earliest Latin dictionary with 
definitions in Spanish. It was driven from the field in 1492 by 
another due to Don Antonio de Nebrija. In 1610 Covarrubias 
wrote the first dictionary in any modern language. In 1739 the 

5 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

Spanish Royal Academy completed in six volumes its Dictionary 
of the Spanish Language, and there was no dictionary in any other 
modern language to be compared to it. These matters of trans- 
lations and lexicography may justly be said not to belong to litera- 
ture, properly so-called ; but in creative work also Spain can well 
hold her own. 

Early Spanish Literature 

About 1120 there was written the Auto de los Reyes Magos, 
the earliest play at present known in any modern literature. De- 
spite its early date, its construction shows real action and keen 
psychology. 

The Cid Campeador, national hero of Spain, died in 1099. By 
1140 the Poema del Cid or Cantar de Mio Cid was composed. 
It is one of the few great epic poems of modern times and shows 
a unity of conception and a sobriety of expression that makes it 
superior to some of the national epics of other lands. 

The first Spanish poet whose name we know, is Gonzalo de 
Berceo, who flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. 
His didactic works written in the form of verse known as the 
Cuaderna Via constitute a dignified volume of material. To the 
same century belong the legal and astronomical works produced 
by Alfonso the Wise or under his leadership. At about 1300 we 
find the first real novel, the Libro del Cavallero Cifar. 

Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, flourished in the first half 
of the fourteenth century and earned the title of ''Spanish 
Chaucer'' with his great satirical poem El Libro de Buen Amor, 
A contemporary of Juan Ruiz was Juan Manuel, who brought 
into Spanish literature the Oriental Tales and Apologues in his 
Libro de los Exemplos del Conde Lucanor^ written about 1342. 
The Jewish Rabbi Sem Tob de Carrion was one of the favorites 
of Peter the Cruel. He left us his important collection of poems, 

6 



TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

under the caption Proverbios Morales, which gives us our first 
example in Spanish literature of the versified epigram. The 
Chancellor Pedro Lopez de Ayala gives us a very keen analysis 
of court life in his long poem entitled Rimado de Palacio. 

To the fifteen century belongs the Spanish Danza de la Muerte. 
In several important respects this is a more interesting version of 
the Dance of Death than is to be found in any other literature. 

The Literary Court of Juan II of Castile 

The literary court of Juan II of Castile (1419-1454) produced 
a brilliant galaxy of prose writers and poets. The works of some 
sixty poets are represented in the celebrated Cancionero de Baena. 
Among the most important of the writers of this period we must 
mention the prosodian Enrique de Villena, who made one of the 
earliest, if not indeed the earliest, complete translation of the 
Aeneid into any foreign language, and who was the first to make 
Dante available for his contemporaries. Nor should we forget 
such writers as Juan de Mena (1411-1456) with his Las Tre- 
mentas; the great portraitist Fernan Perez de Guzman (?1376- 
?1458), called the Spanish Plutarch because of his vivid Genera- 
clones y Semhlanzas; the latter's nephew, the versatile and dis- 
tinguished Marques de Santillana (1398-1458) with his sonorous 
Didlogo de Bias contra Fortuna and his mordant attack upon 
Alvaro de Luna in the Doctrinal de' Privados; Alfonso Martinez 
de Toledo ( ?1398-?1470), the Archpriest of Talavera, whose 
great satirical work, called by his own title Arcipreste de Tala- 
vera^ has been rechristened by the public, which calls it El Cor- 
bacho; Jorge Manrique (1440-1478) with his exquisite Coplas 
de Jorge Manrique por la -muerte de su padre; the first great 
Romance of Chivalry, Amadis de Gaula, and its incredible 
progeny, including the Passo honroso de Suero de Quinones, an 

7 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

authentic account of a tourney that shoAvs the ordinary Romance 
of Chivalry to be only a pale reflex of the real thing, instead of a 
wild exaggeration; and the various Romanceros that began to 
be collected at this time, and that show Spain to have been more 
productive in this field than was either Scotland or England. 
Toward the end of this century and running into the XVIth we 
find the w^orks of the musician-playwright Juan del Encina ( 1469- 
?1533), the ''patriarch of the Spanish stage", of whom there sur- 
vive many lyrics, an important ''theatre", and a good body of 
musical compositions. 

Political Extent and Importance of Spain in the Golden Age 

In the heyday of her Golden Age Spain was foremost in many 
things. Under the Emperor Charles V and his son Philip II her 
dominions formed one of the greatest empires the world had ever 
seen, and the greatest empire then extant. It embraced the King- 
doms of Naples and Sicily and Sardinia, the Duchy of Milan, all 
of Navarre, Roussillon, Franche-Comte, Luxemburg, Artois, 
Flanders, and the Netherlands, all the Kingdoms of Spain, all of 
Portugal, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, the Azores, the 
Madeira Islands, the Cape Verde Islands, Portuguese West India, 
Portuguese and Spanish possessions in Africa, all of South Amer- 
ica, all of Central America, all of the West Indies, and in North 
America, Florida and much of our South and Southwest, the 
Caroline Islands, the Ladrones, and the Philippines, the Spice 
Islands, and all of those parts of the East Indies, Australia, and 
New Zealand that belonged to Portugal or Holland. And for a 
while, too, Philip was even King Consort of England. The Span- 
ish navy, with its victory over the Turks at the battle of Lepanto, 
1571, proved itself to be, as it had long been credited with being, 
the greatest navy that had ever plowed the main. The Spanish 

8 



TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

infantry was confessedly the finest in Europe. Spanish 
industries and products were known the world around. Houder 
in his Declamatio Panegyrica in laudem Hispaniae (1545) said: 
"Of all the nations of Europe, Spain furnishes us with most of 
every kind of commodity. She sends us so much wool that 
Bruges alone receives every year 36,000 to 40,000 bales.'' Shortly 
before this date Spain was one of the leading wheat-producing 
countries of the world. She was famous for metal-working, cord- 
age and shipbuilding; while silk weaving, fine fabrics, linens, and 
gloves were really national industries. And who has not heard 
of the exquisite silver filigree work of Cordoba, and of Cordoba 
leather, to say nothing of the famous Toledo swords and daggers ? 

But this supremacy in territory, political power, commerce, and 
industry began to diminish as soon as it reached its maximum. 
The defeat of the Armada in 1588 wrecked the Spanish naval 
supremacy. The defeat of the Spanish troops by young Conde 
at the battle of Rocroi in 1643 was the deathblow to Spain's mili- 
tary prestige. The expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609 and 1610, 
and a vicious system of embargos and taxation to support the 
foreign wars destroyed agriculture, commerce, and industry by 
the middle of the seventeenth century. This produced its counter 
effect on military operations. 

In 1640 Portugal recovered her independence, although Spain 
refused to recognize the fact until 1668. This deprived Spain of 
the enormous holdings of Portugal in India, Africa, and South 
America. 

The Treaty of Miinster (1648) recognized the independence 
of Holland, Zealand, etc., under the title of The United Nether- 
lands. With them went all the vast Dutch possessions overseas. 

Roussillon and Artois were lost by the Treaty of the Pyrenees 
in 1659 ; and Franche-Comte was ceded to France by the Treaty 

9 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

of Nimeguen in 1678; while Luxemburg went the same way by 
the terms of the Treaty of Ratisbon in 1684. 

While the next great loss took place after the period of which 
we have been speaking, it was so directly a product of conditions 
that obtained in the Golden Age, that we are going to mention it 
here. We refer to the Treaty of Rastadt, 1714, by which Spain 
lost Flanders, Brabant, etc., known as the Spanish Netherlands, the 
Duchy of Milan, and the Kingdoms of Sardinia, Naples and Sicily. 
Spain thus stands stripped of all her European possessions that 
lay outside the boundaries of what we now call Spain, and with 
those possessions went all the overseas possessions belonging 
thereto. 

Spanish Literature of the Golden Age 

But this is not the whole story, and the part that remains to 
be told is glorious. Ranking in reputation for scholarship and for 
numbers with the Universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford 
stand those of Salamanca and Alcala, in the latter of which was 
prepared the great Complutensian Polyglot Bible, due to the com- 
mon labors of the leading scholars, both Jews and Christians. 
Luis Vives, the ValencTan humanist, carried Spanish learning to 
England, where he lived for many years as Fellow at Oxford. 

Europe had not yet recovered from the v/ave of translation 
and imitation caused by that great book, the Coniedia or Tragi- 
come'dia de Calixto y Melihea (more often called the Celestina, 
because of its principal character), when she was set afire anew by 
an equally anonymous work, the first and greatest of the pica- 
resque novels, the Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, the first known 
editions of which are of 1554. The great picaresque genre had 
thus been inaugurated and it had a numerous descent, only a few 
of which can be mentioned: Aleman's Guzman de Alfarache 
(1599), Quevedo's Historia de la Vida del Buscon (1626), and 

10 



TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

Guevara's Diablo Cojuelo (1641). These works were not with- 
out influence in other literatures, either through imitation or trans- 
lation, especially in France and England. Nor should we overlook 
the pastoral novels, as represented by Cervantes' Galatea, Lope de 
Vega's Arcadia, Caspar Mercader's Prado de Valencia, and the 
series of Dianas by various authors. 

Lyric poetry flourished, and side by side with it went the 
incredible development of the Spanish theatre, which, because it 
refused to be bound by the so-called Aristotelian unities, was 
enabled to make itself really national, and exert a profound in- 
fluence upon English and French dramatic productivity. It will 
doubtless be recalled that in France the first great tragedy and 
the first great comedy are built on Spanish originals : Corneille's 
Le Cid, adapted from Las Mocedades del Cid of Guillen de Cas- 
tro ; and Corneille's Le Menteur^ made on Alarcon's La Verdad 
Sospechosa. To say nothing of the host of minor writers, we find 
at our immediate disposal such men as Lope de Vega (with 1800 
plays and more than 400 autos, of which 470 plays and 50 autos 
survive), Tirso de Molina (with 400 plays, of which 80 survive, 
among them the original of the entire Don Juan cycle in all 
literature. El Biirlador de Sevillay Convidado de Piedra), Moreto, 
Alarcon (with a literary baggage of somew^hat less than thirty 
plays, but the only author of front rank who took care to polish 
what he wrote and who, although he never rises quite as high 
as the others, has left no line that is unworthy of himi), and Cal- 
deron (the most representative, the most philosophical, and the 
most lyrical of all the great Spanish dramatists, of whose works 
we possess about 120 pieces, 80 autos, 20 entremeses, jacaras, etc.). 

And still we have not mentioned a work which is not only the 
great book in Spanish literature, but, after the Bible, the 
greatest single book in the world: El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don 
Quijote de La Mancha. 

11 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

While this book has been one of Spain's greatest glories, its 
fame abroad has indirectly done its author and Spain serious harm. 
So much has Don Quijote overshadowed the other works of Cer- 
vantes that few persons even among the elite realize that if Cer- 
vantes had never written Don Quijote he would still be Spain's 
greatest novelist because of his twelve scintillating Novelas Ejem- 
plares. In similar fashion Don Quijote has so overshadowed all 
the rest of Spanish literature that many persons, even among 
those of more than average culture, still speak of Spanish litera- 
ture as a literature consisting of just one book : Don Quijote, and 
I have myself heard that argument at least twenty times in the 
last two weeks in the mouths of educators who are administrators 
of schools or of school systems and who cannot see anything but 
a commercial reason for the present vogue of Spanish. 

Spanish Art in the Golden Age 

The art of this Golden Age in Spain was equally glorious, as 
witness the teUing studies in emaciation and drab that we owe 
to the brush of Zurbaran, or the marvelous technique of the por- 
traits and battle scenes with which Velazquez endowed the world, 
or the colorful canvasses of Ribera and Carreno, or the lovely 
Madonnas for whose painting Murillo seems to have stolen 
Heaven's own hues. But Murillo represented in Spanish art the 
moment when the rose reaches its full bloom, and as happens with 
the rose when that moment is reached, so Spanish art began its 
immediate withering and decay, for Murillo's successors, lacking 
his inspiration, could produce only inspid imitations, however per- 
fect in mechanical detail. 

So it happened, also, in the field of letters. With Calderon 
the zenith of development was reached, and rapid was the descent 
into the dreary waste of an uncreative period. With the extinc- 

12 



TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

tion of the House of Hapsburg in 1700 came the Wars of the 
Spanish Succession and the accession of the first of the Bourbons, 
PhiHp V. This inaugurated a period of slavish imitation of for- 
eign models and for over a hundred years there are no names that 
need detain us. 

The Renaissance of the Nineteenth Century 

Despite her internal troubles during the first half of the nine- 
teenth century, there were here and there signs of a real renais- 
sance, and before the end of the century it had made itself felt all 
along the line. The Spanish drama, the novel, lyric poetry, 
humanistic studies, and the fine arts had all come into their own 
once more. 

Sculpture shows such names as Benlliure (with nearly a dozen 
statues in Madrid alone), Sufiol, Marinas, and Mora (who created 
one of the best monuments for the tercentenary of Cervantes' 
death, a monument that stands in Golden Gate Park, San 
Francisco). Painting conferred upon the world such names as 
Fortuny, the briUiant Madrazo family of portrait painters (six 
of them in three generations) , and the greatest of living painters 
today : Zuloaga, the cynic, hard and cold, but exquisite master of 
technique; and above all Sorolla, the warm-hearted and radiant, 
whose canvasses fill our souls with sunshine and joy. 

The greatest humanist in the world in the nineteenth century 
was Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, professor at the University of 
Madrid for twenty years, and thereafter until his death National 
Librarian. His insatiable appetite for books is well expressed in 
the phrase that was often used concerning his activity as Na- 
tional Librarian: *'He did not administer the National Library, 
he read it.'' In his life there merged two distinct streams of 
literary investigation: the philosophico-historical and the philo- 

13 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

logico-historical, and of both streams there flows out from him a 
worthy contimiation : for the latter, Ramon Menendez Pidal, the 
greatest Romance Philologian Spain has yet produced ; and for 
the former Adolfo Bonilla y San Martin, a prolific writer with a 
mind that may fairly be called encyclopaedic. 

Even science shows an awakening and the world recognizes 
its leading histologist in the person of Santiago Ramon y Cajal. 
That biologists think highly of Angel Cabrera Latorre (youngest 
son of the late Bishop of the Spanish Reformed Church, Juan B. 
Cabrera) is evident from the fact that when despite his youth he 
was sent by his government to a recent international congress of 
biologists held under the patronage of the Prince of Monaco, the 
delegates elected him chairman of the section on mammals. 

Lyric Poetry 

Lyric poetry flourished. Early in the twentieth century Juan 
Valera compiled a Florilegio de Poesias Castellanas del Siglo 
XIX (five volumes, with an historical introduction and biographi- 
cal and critical notes), in which he gives us poems by one hun- 
dred and fifty-two poets, with excessive modesty omitting 
anything of his own. Lyric poetry is the most difficult form of 
literature to reproduce in translation. Consequently little of this 
part of nineteenth century Spanish literature is available for those 
of our compatriots v/ho do not read Spanish, and yet I am sure 
that the majority of those who read Spanish must enjoy the 
works of such writers as the Duque de Rivas (one of the founders 
of Romanticism in Spain), Espronceda, Zorilla (the author of 
the revised version of the ballads dealing with the Cid Campea- 
dor), the dainty Cuban poetess Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda 
(whose sonnet to Washington is one of the finest tributes that 
has ever been paid to "the father of his country"), the tender, 

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TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

melancholy Becquer, Campoamor (the author of the exquisite 
Doloras), Ntiiiez de Arce (with his stirring Gritos del Combate 
and jStirsum Corda!), and the sweet singer of nature's beauties 
(El Huracdn and Niagara), the lonely Cuban exile Jose Maria 
de Heredia. 

The Modern Drama 

The drama has shown an equally vigorous life at home and a 
more widespread influence abroad. Moratin the younger in 1806 
sounded a blast in favor of the feminist movement, with his rol- 
licking El Si de las Ninas, in which he made, without preachment, 
a serious attack on the general training given to young girls. To 
Zorilla we owe the rejuvenation of the Don Juan legend, for at 
the Hallowe'en season his play Don Juan Tenorio is performed 
during two weeks to crowded houses in practically every theatre 
in the country. Tamayo y Baus produced a splendid and not too 
bulky set of plays, one of which, the Drama Nuevo, is one of the 
great plays of all literature. As a play within a play it has never 
been surpassed in its wxlding together of the two sets of char- 
acters. Some years ago it was adapted into English for Augustin 
Daly, under the title Yorick's Love ; and recently The Hispanic 
Society has published an exact translation of the original, accord- 
ing to the Spanish Academy's official edition. Angel Guimera, the 
Catalan, is perhaps the most virile dramatist in Spain today. His 
Terra Baixa has been translated into Serbian, Italian, French, and 
Spanish, in the latter of which it w^ent through Cuba, Mexico, and 
South America, and Mrs. Fiske produced it some years ago (1903) 
in this country under the title Marta of the Lowlands. Perez 
Galdos, although primarily a novelist, has frequently been suc- 
cessful with dramas that are keen studies of contemporary condi- 
tions in Spain. His The Grandfather (a dialogued novel) and 
Electra are both available in English. Echegaray, the mathema- 

15 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

tician, civil engineer, statesman, cabinet minister (a man cast in 
much the same mold as our own beloved Hopkinson Smith), was 
also a dramatist and justified that title by producing about seventy 
plays. In 1904 he was awarded one-half the Nobel Prize for the 
ideal in literature (the other half going to the poet of Provence, 
Frederic Mistral). He earned the award by several ideal works. 
El Gran Galeoto has been translated into several languages, and 
is familiar to us in English through several translations and 
through the adaptation performed by Mr. William Faversham and 
his wife, Miss Julie Opp, under the title of The World and His 
Wife. locura o santidad is available in English under the title 
Madman or Saint ^ and of El loco Dios (a keen study of mono- 
mania) we have the version entitled The Madman Divine. 

Among the ultra-modern dramatists we have such figures as 
the Alvarez Quintero brothers (with their keen studies of modern 
life and its foibles) ; Jacinto Benavente (fondly called by some 
of his admirers the ''Modern Shakespeare") ; Gregorio Martinez 
Sierra ; Manuel Linares Rivas ; Eduardo Marquina ; and Joaquin 
Dicenta (exponent of socialistic doctrines). 

For poetry we turn to Juan Ramon Jimenez and Manuel and 
xAntonio Machado; whereas critics and essayists are represented 
by Enrique Gomez Carrillo, Miguel de Unamuno, Manuel Bueno, 
Andres Gonzalez Blanco, and Jose Ortega y Gassett. 

Many other authors we must omit so that we may pass on to 
the novel. But please bear in mind that just as the literary and 
artistic crescendo of the Golden Age was contemporaneous with 
a political and territorial diminuendo, so this renaissance of which 
we have been speaking has been progressing while the country 
has gone on losing colonial territory, and struggling with revolu- 
tions and counter-revolutions at home. If you stop to think about 
it, you will realize that this renaissance has been simply marvelous. 

16 



TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

Spain could not have done it if she had been at heart the decadent 
nation that some of her critics declare her to be. 

The Modern Novel 

Valera has been credited with creating the Modern Spanish 
novel. You may ask how this can be when his first novel ap- 
peared in 1874, and at least two other writers had been doing 
good work before that date, i. e., the gifted Fernan Caballero 
(1796-1877), half Spanish, half German (nee Carolina Bohl von 
Faber), whose first Spanish work. La Gaviota, appeared in 1848; 
and Pereda, whose Esce'v.as montanesas appeared in 1864. Both 
these writers were realists in the good old Spanish sense, which 
they were reviving. But they did not found a school. Fernan 
Caballero was a keen observer of incidents and a skillful limner 
of pictures, but she was not so strong in character delineation, and 
was distinctly wealc in construction of plots. Pereda, on the con- 
trary, was a master at character delineation, but his characters 
are regional and he makes an excessive use of dialect and per- 
mits a polemical strain to color too much of his work. There- 
fore, his first great success was Bocetos al temple, which ap- 
peared in 1876, two years after Valera's Pepita Jimenez, In this 
same year (1876) Valera published his second great novel, El 
Comendador Mendoza, which in turn was followed in 1878 by 
Dona Luz. 

It was the appearance of Pepita Jimenez in 1874 that awakened 
Spain, and the world, to a reaHzation of what Spain could again 
accomplish in prose fiction, if she would return wholeheartedly 
to her native inspiration of more than regional interest. The 
author of it had proved himself a thorough-going realist of the 
good old Spanish type, and at the same time an idealist and a 
classicist. 

17 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

The literary descent of this awakening shows such names as 
the following: 

Perez Galdos, with his incredible gallery of more than five 
hundred portraits in the nearly fifty volumes of his Episodios 
Nacionales, giving in novelistic form the history of nineteenth 
century Spain; with his twenty-three volumes of Novelas Con- 
iempordneas, seven volumes of Novelas de la primera epoca, and 
fifteen volumes of dramas ; 

Clarin, the critic, and author of La Regenta; 

Palacio Valdes, with his stories of Andalucia and of Galicia 
(Jose^ Mart a y Maria, La Hermana San Sulpicio) ; 

The Countess Emilia Pardo Bazan, with her fascinating 
Cuentos de Marineda, and her other naturalistic stories ; 

The brilliant champion of social reform, Blasco Ibafiez, with 
his keen studies of contemporary life in various parts of Spain 
(La Barraca, Cuentos valencianos, Arroz y tartana, La Bodega, 
La Catedral, Sangre y Arena, El Intniso, La Horda, La Maja 
desnuda) ; 

And a host of minor writers of one good book each, as well 
as many even of the newest comers: Pio Baroja (with Los 
Ultimos romdnticos) ; Valle-Inclan (with Flor de Santidad) ; Mar- 
tinez Ruiz (with Las confesiones de un pequeno filosofo) ; and 
Valera's own son, Luis Valera, Marques de Villasinda (at pres- 
ent Ambassador of Spain in Petrograd), who has already to his 
credit more than a half dozen novels (El filosofo y la tiple, Visto 
y sonado, Del antano quimerico, Sombras chinescas, Un alma dd 
Dios, De la muerte al amor) . 

With its long struggle for constitutional reform against the 
deeply entrenched special interests of the sovereign, the clergy, 
and the nobles; with its gradual passage from an absolute mon- 
archy (which was a theocratic tyranny accompanied by the Inqui- 

18 



TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 

sition) to a constitutional monarchy (with freedom of reHgious 
worship) led by an enlightened king who wishes to be king of all 
his people and not merely of a majority of them, the history of 
Spain in the nineteenth century is one of the most thrilling and 
romantic stories to be fourfd in modern times. 

As a knowledge of Spanish is the key that unlocks the door 
of this vast treasure-house of transcendently important and in- 
teresting materials, it would seem as though we had at hand a 
sufficient explanation of the importance of Spanish to the Ameri- 
can citizen. But there is more to be said. 

Spanish America 

From the loins of this glorious Spain there have come eighteen 
sovereign and independent nations. The story of the discovery 
and conquest of the territory they occupy is one of the most amaz- 
ing tales in all history. Their long, uphill struggle for independ- 
ence has much in common with our own Revolution, and will 
therefore prove to be of very great interest to us in North Amer- 
ica. Our affection for Washington and other Revolutionary heroes 
should endear to us Bolivar, O'Higgins, San Martin, Sarmiento, 
and others. 

Since attaining their independence from Spain these countries 
have kept up a cordial relationship with the mother-land that 
parallels the cordiality that has existed between ourselves and the 
British Isles. While all of these nations have traits in common, 
due to their common origin, and common speech, their individ- 
ualities are quite clearly delineated. It is of prime importance 
to us that we attain unto a wide and sympathetic knowledge of 
their political, social, economic, and spiritual ideals, their history, 
their art, their several Hteratures, their institutions, their constitu- 
tions : in short, their general culture. 

19 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SPANISH 

Only after we shall have removed the "barrier of language" 
' shall we be able to enter into that vital spiritual communion with 
our southern neighbors which will permit us to throw the imited 
influence of the independent nations of the Western Hemisphere 
into those spiritual movements that hold out the most promise of 
an enduring peace throughout the three Americas. 



20 



THE HISPANIC SERIES 

SPANISH— THE LANGUAGE 

GRAMMAR 
Bushee, Alice H. (Wellesley College), 

Fundamentals of Spanish Grammar. 
COMPOSITION 
Burnet, P. B. (Manual Training High School, Kansas City, Missouri), 

Spanish Syntax. 
Espinosa, A. M. (Leland Stanford Junior University), 

Advanced Spanish Composition and Conversation. 
Moreno-Lacalle, J. (United States Naval Academy), 

Spanish Commercial Correspondence. 

Wilkins, L. A. (DeWitt Clinton High School, New York), 
Elementary Spanish Prose Book. 
First Spanish Book (For use in Junior or other type of High 

School). 
Second Spanish Book (For use in Junior or other type of 

High School). 
Third Spanish Book (For use in Junior or other type of High 

School). 

READERS 
Berge-Soler, Eduardo, and Hatheway, Joel (both of High School of 
Commerce, Boston), 
Elementary Spanish-American Reader. 
Espinosa, A. M. 

Elementary Spanish Reader. 

Se3rmour, A. R. (University of Illinois), 

Elementary Spanish Reader. 

METHODS 
Wilkins, L. A. 

Spanish in the High Schools — A Handbook of Methods 

SPANISH— THE LITERATURE 

SELECTIONS 
Crawford, J. P. W. (University of Pennsylvania); Fitz-Gerald, J. D.; 

and Umphrey, G. W. (University of 'Washington); Anthology of 

Spanish Literature. 
Owen, A. L. (University of Kansas), National Legends of Spain. 

ELEMENTARY TEXTS 
Bourland, Caroline B. (Smith College), Dos Comedias Conteinporaneas. 
Burnet, P B., El Capitan Veneno (Alarconl. 
Fitz-Gerald, J. D., El Pajaro Verde (Valera). 
Hendrix, W. S. (University of Texas), Articulos Escogidos (Larra). 

21 



Owen, A. L., and Lister, J. T. (Olivet College), La Conjuracion de Venecia 

(Martinez de la Rosa). 
Todd, Gretchen (Smith College), Zaragiieta (Carrion y Aza). 

ADVANCED TEXTS 
Bushee, Alice H., La Prudencia en la Mujer (Tirso de Molina). 
Fitz-Gerald, J. D. and Leora A. (University of Illinois), Electra (Galdos), 

and La Verdad Sospechosa (Ruiz de Alarcon). 
Ingraham, E. S. (Ohio State University), La Estrella de Se villa (Lope 
de Vega). 

HISPANIC AMERICA 

ARGENTINA 
Laguardia, Garibaldi and C. J. B. (both of United States Naval Acad- 
emy), Selections from the Literature of Argentina. 
Nelson, Ernesto (University of La Plata, Argentina), Sema de Nifia 
(Podesta). 

BRAZIL 
Selections from the Literature of Brazil. 

CHILE 
Selections from the Literature of Chile. 

COLOMBIA 
Selections from the Literature of Colombia. 

CUBA 
Sens, Homero (University of Illinois), Selections from the Literature 
of Cuba. 

MEXICO 
Espinosa, A. M., Selections from the Literature of Mexico. 

PERU 
Umphrey, G. W., Selections from the Literature of Peru. 

SAN DOMINGO 
Enriquez Urefia, Pedro (University of Minnesota), Enriquillo (Galvan). 

URUGUAY 
Nin Frias, Alberto (Montevideo, Uruguay), Ariel (Jose Enrique Rodo). 

VENEZUELA 
Rivas, A. C. (Pan American Union, Washington, D. C), Selections from 

the Literature of Venezuela. 
Soto, R. A. (University of Illinois), Lucia (Emilio Constantino Guerrero). 

PORTUGUESE— GRAMMAR, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE 

Costa, Louis Philip, 

A Portuguese Grammar. 

An Elementary Portuguese Reader. 

O Suave Milagre (Ega de Queiroz). 

Goodell, Reginald R. (Simmons College), An Elementary Portuguese 
Commercial Reader. 

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